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Liliane Haegeman (Haegeman@Univ-Lille3.Fr) * THE EXTERNAL POSSESSOR CONSTRUCTION IN WEST FLEMISH Liliane Haegeman ([email protected]) 1. AIM AND SCOPE OF THE PAPER West Flemish (WF) has two constructions with prenominal possessors, illustrated in (1) and (2). (1) a. Valère se boek b. Marie se boek Valère se book Marie se book 'Valère’s book' 'Marie’s book' c. Valère sen oto d. Marie sen oto Valère sen car Marie sen car 'Valère's car' 'Marie's car' (2) a. Valère zenen boek Valère his book 'Valère’s book' b. Marie euren boek Marie her book 'Marie's book' c. Marie en Valère under boeken Marie and Valère their books 'Marie and Valère's books' (1) illustrates the WF equivalent of the English or Dutch genitive construction. The bound morpheme se(n) has to be adjacent to the possessor DP. The alternation between se and sen is phonetically conditioned: se precedes a consonant, sen precedes a vowel. Se(n) is restricted to singular possessors. Though similar, and possibly diachronically related, to the masculine singular possessive pronoun zyn/zen, sen is used both for feminine and masculine possessors as shown by (1). In (2) the possessor DP is doubled by a possessive pronoun. The pronoun co-varies according to gender and number with the head noun.1 I refer to this construction as the doubling construction. The possessive pronoun in the doubling construction is a free * I thank the editors of GG@G for inviting me to contribute a paper to this electronic journal. I hope the journal will become one of many ways to keep in touch with my friends @G. A first version of this paper was presented at the NP-conference in Antwerp (February 2000). I thank the audience of the conference for their comments. 1 Possessor doubling constructions have been signalled for a number of other languages. To mention just a few references: Ramat (1986) for a survey of such constructions in a range of languages, Corver (1990) for general discussion in a generative approach, Delsing (1998) and Fiva (1984) for Scandinavian, Jansen (1974, 1977), Janssen (1975) and Koelman (1975) for Dutch, Taeldeman (1995) for Flemish, Ponelis (1992) for Afrikaans, Stahl (1925) and Janda (1980) for earlier stages of English. GG@G (Generative Grammar in Geneva) 1:1-19, 2000 © 2000 Liliane Haegeman 2 LILIANE HAEGEMAN morpheme and can be separated from the possessor (3a,a'); in the se(n) construction the possessor and the bound morpheme must be adjacent (3b,b'). (3) a. al Valère zen boeken all Valère his books a'. Valère al zen boeken b. al Valère-se boeken all Valère se books b'. * Valère al-se boeken In this paper I will examine one property that sets the doubling construction apart from the genitive se(n) construction: the doubling construction allows for the pattern in (4a,b) in which an external relative or interrogative possessor is construed as having a possessor relation with a DP containing a matching doubling possessive pronoun. I will refer to this pattern as the external possessor construction. (4) a. Dat is die verpleegster dan-ze gisteren [DP eur us] verkocht een. that is that nurse that-they yesterday her house sold have 'That’s the nurse whose house they sold yesterday.' b. Wekken verpleegster zei-je gie dan-ze gisteren [DP eur us] verkocht een? which nurse said you that-they yesterday her house sold have 'Who was the nurse whose house you said they sold yesterday?' This pattern is not available for the sen-construction (5). (5) a. * Dat is die verpleegster dan-ze gisteren [DP sen us] verkocht een. b. * Wekken verpleegster zei-je gie dan-ze gisteren [DP sen us] verkocht een? Given the availability of the doubling construction in (2), it may at first sight seem tempting to propose to account for the data (4) in terms of (left-branch) extraction of the relative or interrogative possessor. The contrast between the grammaticality of (4) and the ungrammaticality of (5) follows if we assume that se(n) is a bound morpheme. Extraction of the possessor would lead to a violation of the Stray Affix filter. The same explanation would also account for the ungrammaticality of (3b'). This paper will provide evidence against a movement account of the data in (4). An analysis of (4) in terms of leftward possessor A'-movement would mean that WF is similar to Greek and Hungarian, in which possessor movement has been shown to be available: (6) a. [CP [Tinosi ] [IP mu ipes [CP ti pos dhiavases [DP ti to vivlio]]] whose me-gen said that read-2sg the book 'You told me you read whose book?' (Greek, Horrocks and Stavrou 1987). b. [CP [TopP Marinaki [FocP PETER làtta [IP [DP ti a kalapja]]]]]. Mari-dative Peter saw the hat 'PETER saw Mary's hat.' c. [CP [FocP Kineki làtta [IP Kati [DP ti a kalapja]]]]? whose-dative saw Kati the hat 'Whose hat did Kati see?' (Hungarian, Szabolcsi 1983, 1987, 1994) THE EXTERNAL POSSESSOR CONSTRUCTION IN WEST FLEMISH 3 However, though attractive, such an analysis of the WF external possessor construction in (4) would lead to a range of unexpected asymmetries between WF and the related Germanic languages on the one hand and also internally to WF itself. The paper is organised as follows. Sections 2 and 3 offer arguments against a movement analysis for the WF external possessor construction. In section 4 I propose that the relation between the possessor and the possessed DP is established by the resumptive pronoun strategy and not by movement. Section 5 summarises the paper and contains some issues for future study. 2. GERMANIC ASYMMETRIES Like WF, colloquial Dutch has a doubling pattern as discussed in some detail by Corver (1990). (7) a. Du. Ze hebben die verpleegster haar/d'r huis verkocht. they have that nurse her/her house sold 'They have sold that nurse's house.' b. Du. Ik heb Jan z'n auto gewassen. I have Jan his car washed 'I have washed John's car.' The external possessor construction is not available in Dutch, however: (8) a. Du. * Dat is die verpleegster dat ze gisteren haar/d’r huis verkocht hebben. that is that nurse that they yesterday her house sold have b. Du. * Welke verpleegster zei jij dan ze gisteren haar/d’r huis verkocht hebben? which nurse said you that they yesterday her house sold have Norwegian also displays the doubling construction (Fiva 1984, Corver 1990, Delsing 1998). (9) Per sin bil (Norwegian: Fiva 1984; Delsing 1998) Per his car As signalled by Corver (1990: 183), short possessor extraction is possible in Norwegian, but only if the possessed DP is a predicate (Compare the grammatical (10a,b,c) with the ungrammatical (10d,e)); long extraction is not possible. (10) a. Hvemi er det [ti sin tante]? who is it his aunt 'Whose aunt is it?' b. Hvemi er det [ti sin bil]? who is it his car 'Whose car is this?' c. Hvemi er han [ti sin bror]? who is he his brother 'Whose brother is he?' d. * Hvemi skal vi forfore [ti sin soster] na? who shall we seduce his sister now e. *? Hvemi kjenner du [ti sin bror]? who know you his brother 4 LILIANE HAEGEMAN Corver gives a case-related explanation for the Norwegian data. In order to account for the ban on extraction he says: The idea that the specifier of a DP which is case marked by its sister is not accessible to antecedent government by a VP-adjoined trace, might shed some light on these puzzling facts. Consider first the facts in [10d,e], in which the possessor is reordered out of a DP which is not a predicate nominal. The verb assigns case to the DP containing the left-branch possessor. So it does not govern into the [Spec,DP] of that DP. The trace occupying the [Spec,DP] position after removal of the left-branch possessor, will not be antecedent governed by the VP-adjoined trace because of the barrierhood of the DP which is case marked by the verb. So, extraction yields an ECP- violation. (1990:183) Extraction from a possessive construction is banned in Dutch, even from a predicative DP (11) (Corver 1990: 183). (11) a. * Wiei is dat [ti z'n tante]? who is that his aunt b. * Wiei is hij [ti z'n broer]? who is he his brother Corver relates the difference between Dutch and Norwegian to case assignment to the predicate DP. In Dutch, predicate nominals are assigned accusative case: (12) a. Ik ben hem. I-nom am him-acc b. Ik denk that 't 'm is. I think that it him-acc is Concerning examples like Dutch (12) he says: Hem and its reduced form 'm are both predicate nominals carrying accusative case…the predicate nominal is assigned case by the verb, and does not, for example, receive nominative case under predication from the subject… The nonextractability of wie in [11] can be accounted for as follows: the copular verb assigns case to the DP- complement. Therefore, V cannot case-govern the [Spec,DP] position. Since V cannot govern the [Spec,DP] position, the intermediate antecedent trace adjoined to VP does not govern that position either. The case marked DP creates a barrier. So, the initial trace occupying the [Spec,DP] after removal of the left-branch possessor is not antecedent governed and therefore violates the ECP. (1990:184) For Norwegian the situation is different since in that language the predicate pronoun may be realised as either nominative or accusative: (13) a. Det er meg/jeg.
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